PFC Maria Daume: 'The Marine Corps will train me to be the best I can be.'

PFC Maria Daume talks about enlisting in the U.S. Marine Corps an with infantry contract after graduation on Friday, Jan. 13, 2017, at Marine Corps Recruit Depot Parris Island. She is one of the first four females enlisted with infantry contracts

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PFC Maria Daume talks about enlisting in the U.S. Marine Corps an with infantry contract after graduation on Friday, Jan. 13, 2017, at Marine Corps Recruit Depot Parris Island. She is one of the first four females enlisted with infantry contracts

How do the Marines train women at Parris Island? A former officer shares 'The Truth'

In her recent essay in the New York Times, former Marine Corps Recruit Depot Parris Island battalion commander Kate Germano began with a story about chairs.

And why she got rid of them.

It's a story she tells in her new book, "Fight Like A Girl: The Truth Behind How Female Marines Are Trained," which debuted this week.

When she took command in June 2014 of the depot's 4th Recruit Training Battalion — the Corps' only female recruit training unit — she noticed a line of chairs had been placed behind a group of women trainees after they finished the Crucible, the grueling final test one must pass before earning her eagle, globe and anchor — and the title, Marine.

And months later she'd find herself out of a job for, as she tells it, challenging the status quo and pushing for higher training standards for, and equal treatment of, female recruits.

The experience led her to write "Fight Like A Girl," a memoir and cutting commentary on gender inequality in the Corps, and its relevance to greater American society.

"We are missing the boat on tapping into the talent that's out there and recruiting the right women and selling them on the right roles," Germano said Wednesday afternoon during a phone interview. And not just combat roles, she added: really, the book should be seen as a critical work advocating for a stronger, more agile, forward-thinking Marine Corps.

While the Corps contends she was relieved of command because she bullied subordinates and created a "toxic" leadership environment, it can't deny that women trainees' marksmanship improved on the rifle range. As the Marine Corps Times reported in July 2015, just after Germano's ouster, first-time rifle qualification rates "soared from 79 percent to 91 percent" under her supervision. (During that same time, the men's rates improved from 93 percent to 96 percent, according to the newspaper.)

She worked to increase physical fitness standards and reduce injuries, and to stamp out hazing in her battalion, a story she shared with The Island Packet and Beaufort Gazette last year.

Germano, who's back in school at Georgetown and doing consulting work, doesn't see herself as a trailblazer: "I view myself as somebody who ... was trying to do the right thing for the institution," she said.

Writing the book was tough, she said. As a 20-year Marine, she felt conflicted at times and was "literally terrified about what the Marine Corps' official reaction would be." But that reaction hasn't come yet, she said.

Today, according to Marine officials, no lines of chairs are placed behind recruits as they finish the Crucible and gather near a statue commemorating the famous World War II flag-raising on Iwo Jima.

Officials at Marine Corps Training and Education Command say women and men are held to the same standards at boot camp. Battalion command staffs have been integrated at Parris Island, even if much of training remains segregated.